His Fire Inside Read online

  My phone goes off, and I send it to voice mail. I’m not in the mood for Collette’s breathy little moans of how much she misses me. It never fails, no matter how often I say I’m not interested in anything more than a little fun for a few weeks, it never ends as easily as women promise it will. Collette laughed when I set my rules, claiming she was just looking for some fun.

  I met her almost six weeks ago, she was in Monaco for a photo shoot for some makeup company. She found it amusing I wasn’t aware she was a model, as she made it clear she was almost a supermodel and was in the tabloids often. Her hint was I should know because I, of late, had been in the French tabloids and European press because of the women I fucked. Her presence in the tabloids should have warned me about the type of person she was. For me it’s the one part of my time overseas I hated, being followed around by paparazzi. I didn’t pick the women I fucked for their titles or who they were; I based it on if I thought they’d be good in bed.

  Collette was clingy from the beginning. We went out every night, at her insistence. She was also a lousy fuck, lying back as if she were bored. I was ready to end things when I got the phone call about Mom. When I told her I needed to come back to Austin because of my mother’s stroke, she threw an ear-splitting tantrum. She’s been calling me ever since. I haven’t answered a single call.

  A glance at my watch tells me it’s been an hour since I got here. It’s also close to dinner, at least for Mom. I go through her refrigerator; the meals I have delivered to her are stacking up. Another indication she isn’t doing well on her own. I’m aware she’s spending more time in her room, in bed.

  Once again, as it has almost every day since I got the call, guilt hits me hard for not being here when her stroke happened. It’s not as though I haven’t been back in Austin at all in three years. I’ve come back for the festivals and racing. I also spend the weeks of Thanksgiving and Christmas here. On top of that, I asked Mom repeatedly to join me in Monaco and she turned me down every time.

  It’s hard to believe she had the stroke—she’s only sixty-two—but it’s a wakeup call for the both of us. While I’m not sure how long I’m staying in Austin, I do know it will be a while. I have not given up on the idea of moving her into my place, only I’m not willing to go against her wishes. For now, having this Olivia stay with Mom is the best option out of the ones I have.

  I hear the wheels of the walker seconds before Mom walks into the kitchen. “I’m sorry if I’ve kept you here too long. I guess Patricia worked me out harder than I thought.”

  She reaches out for a hug. As I return it, I’m careful to keep my hug gentle, she seems so frail. “Don’t worry about it. I only just finished what I was doing. I am starving though. You hungry? Want to keep me company so I don’t eat alone?”

  “Hmm...yes, something to eat sounds good. Are there any of those chicken enchiladas in there?”

  “Yes, chicken enchiladas coming up. I’m thinking of this mushroom ravioli thing, is it safe?” These aren’t the strict dietician-developed meals I usually eat. My morning starts with an hour-long workout in the exercise room I added to my office, along with a steam shower. Working out at work keeps me from getting comfortable or overdoing it, as I can get lost in my workouts at home. For Mom, I’m willing to adapt the rest of my day to offset this change by adding another workout this evening in my home gym.

  “You know it is. Just like you know it’s not one of my favorites, so thank you for eating it for me. Even though it’s not one of those perfectly prepared meals you usually eat.” Mom knows about the biohacking diet and my workouts and attempts to support them even if at least once every six months she tries to, as she says, make me see sense.

  “I remember you weren’t happy with it. I thought I cancelled it on the delivery list. How was your therapy session today?”

  “It went well. I’m getting better at holding things heavier than three pounds. From the way Patricia acted you would have thought I power lifted something.”

  “I like Patricia. How are you doing with her?”

  “Good, I like her too. Very sweet young woman, if a tad pushy.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s a part of her job description. She mentioned she thinks it’s a good idea if you had someone living in instead of Eliza coming in at night. What do you think? Sweet tea?”

  I take out Mom’s meal from the toaster oven, put it on a plate and place it in front of her. “Water, please, the tea is keeping me up. I thought about it. I’m not sure. Patricia mentioned the poor girl doesn’t have a home, she goes from house to house working with her clients. Can you imagine that, not having a home to go to? I do have the guest room that never gets used, aside from your old room you only use during festival season.”

  My home is off Capital of Texas, hanging off the side of a hill, and is a long drive I’m not up for during the late nights and early mornings of festival season. “Sounds tough, to go from one place to another without having your own place. Maybe you can freshen up the room and help her decorate it, so she feels more comfortable. You had fun redoing the living room, at least with her picking the paint you won’t go through five different shades of it.”

  “My son, the comedian. It was only two different shades. Hmm...if she manages to make it through all those hoops and checks of yours, it might be nice to have someone around the house.”

  “The background checks are for your safety. I’m not going to apologize for them. We’ll see.”

  After dinner we watch her favorite television show. I get a call on one of my clubs that has me leaving earlier than I would like, but Mom understands and gives me a hug as I promise I’ll call tomorrow.

  2

  Olivia

  “I’m telling you, you won’t get a better gig than working for Rourke Vega. The guy adores his mom, and he’ll do whatever it takes to make her happy. He’s paying me twice my normal rate because I was a recommendation by his mom’s doctor. He straight up said he wanted to make it impossible for me to say no. You could set your terms, he won’t blink an eye at anything you ask for. And she’s not even his real mom, she’s his stepmom, but she’s been in his life since he was only five. All the ways he cares about her are adorable, but then there’s the man himself. Good lord, he is as five-alarm-fire hot as they say he is. The first time I met him I wanted to lick his freaking face. I had no idea why.

  “The chiseled cheekbones, nose and jaw give him this hard look, but he has that dimple in his chin. And I swear his mouth looks so soft and kissable. I wanted to climb him like the mountain he is. You would be so lucky to get the job.” She does the dreamy sigh thing I have never heard from her in the five years I’ve known her.

  I want to laugh but since Patricia, a forty-eight-year-old grandma, never goes gaga over a guy, I’m almost a little worried about how hot she thinks the guy she’s sending me to work for is. Fighting to cover my discomfort, I force a gasp. “Patricia, you slut. Is there any of him left or have you eaten all of him with your eyes?”

  “Girl, wait until you meet him. Even you with your eh, eh, when it comes to men, you will go gaga over him.”

  “I don’t know. I kind of hate Rourke Vega. I don’t know if I can work for the man. Let alone go gaga over the guy.” I shrug as I lie back against the headboard of the bed.

  “What? Why? I never knew you’d met him.”

  “I haven’t met him.”

  “How can you hate the guy if you’ve never met him?”

  With a sigh, I list his sins—yes, I kept count. “On account of the man is almost singlehandedly to blame for making Austin the hipster mecca, changing it from this nice, cool, quirky college town to douche central, with Whole Foods everywhere and Ferraris clogging up Mo-Pac and I-35. The guy owns a Bugatti Veyron and Chiron that he doesn’t even drive, seriously? And the racing in Austin is all him.

  “He built those two different condo units along South Lamar and that one on First Street. The hotel in South Austin and the downtown one with the clubs that attra
cted all the pretty people like moths to a flame. He went and bought a tract of land and made it into a concrete village of strip malls and chain restaurants and an enormous theater. He’s changed South Austin completely.

  “Ten years ago you could afford to rent a one-bedroom in South Austin for about five hundred, and now you can’t get a studio for less than eight hundred in the same area. He does all that then just leaves and becomes this playboy ho, flitting around the French Riviera doing princesses and actresses on yachts and balconies. The guy is a total manwhore.”

  Patricia laughs. “Tell me how you really feel about the guy. He’s not the only guy who changed Austin, although yeah, he had a huge hand in it. He sunk a crap ton of money into the music festival and was one of the people to suggest the movie aspect to it.

  “But hello, it takes two to tango, and it’s not like those women aren’t using him as much as he uses them. How is it his fault he’s so hot women drop their panties when they meet him?”

  “I stand by the manwhore title. The guy is loaded, and what has he given back to the city?”

  “Okay yes, he’s probably reached billionaire status, although no one knows for sure because he’s private like that. You know all that, yet you don’t know the guy has put in thousands for the homeless community? He’s also given hundreds of thousands to the LGBTQ community and veterans. He has the house flipping business that employs veterans on the regular, not per project, he even has it set up with PTO for when they can’t work. He’s not all that bad.”

  Huh, I guess I skipped over those parts of the articles. “I haven’t really heard about all of that.”

  “He also doesn’t get involved with his employees either, which you would technically be. From someone who has actually met the man, he’s nowhere near as bad as you’ve made him out to be. Besides, it’s not really him you have to worry about, it’s his mom and she’s a sweetheart. You’ll love her.”

  “True, I might not be a fan of his. I am, however, a fan of money and no matter who they are, someone who would do anything for someone they love does sound pretty great. I’m also kind of on a clock. Janice and Mark leave in a week, so if I don’t find something else soon I’ll be sharing a room with my three-year-old niece.” From the room next door, I can hear Skyler and his mom laughing as she puts him to bed. Despite what Janice and her husband Mark think, they don’t need me as much anymore as they believe they do. Over the last year Janice and Mark have found a new comfort level with handling Skyler’s cerebral palsy.

  They were close to putting seven-year-old Skyler into a living facility until Mark’s mother hired me as their live-in CNA and companion more than a year ago. There was a lot of anger on Skyler’s part for how his parents treated him. Janice and Mark weren’t sure exactly how to handle him and were stuck in a rut they couldn’t get out of it. I’ll miss them, but it is the right time to move on, even if they weren’t moving to Seattle. I was beginning to get too attached to all of them.

  With my LPN I should be focusing on positions in hospitals, only I still wanted to get qualified as a registered nurse. It was easier going to school and paying for it as a live-in companion. There’s also a freedom that comes with home healthcare most people wouldn’t expect.

  “Okay, give me the guy’s number. I’ll call him tomorrow.” I take down the phone number. As I do another call comes in, my sister Stella. “I got another call I have to take, I’ll call you later.”

  “Let me know how it goes,” Patricia says as she hangs up.

  “I will.” I click over to my sister. “Hey, what’s up?”

  “I was checking on you, to see how you were doing. Have you found another job yet?”

  There’s something in her voice. I sag as I force a smile into my own voice, even if I’m sure it doesn’t fool her. “Yeah, I do actually. All lined up. You know me, I’m all good.”

  Stella sighs. “Oh, that’s great. Larry, he was saying he didn’t think it was a good idea for you to stay with us. I know you two don’t get along very well. This is a good thing. Even though I love your help with the girls, I was looking forward to you helping out but this—I, well...I’m glad you got another job.”

  It’s petty, to let Stella dig herself deeper and deeper. She’s my little sister, I practically raised her, yet with Larry the asshole whispering in her ear I’m barely allowed through their door anymore. For the last few years, the time I’ve spent with them in between assignments has become more and more brief and tense.

  Larry is controlling. He doesn’t like that he couldn’t control me or that I urged my sister to be more independent and go back and finish the college degree she abandoned to marry Larry and never got. He keeps a tight leash on my sister and their four girls, four girls under four because my brother-in-law was determined to have a boy. Never mind if my sister has a hard time delivering every time and she’s only twenty-three. I’m lucky if I get to see her more than once a month for lunch.

  “Me too, so I’ll talk to you later.” I hang up even though I hear her saying something else. It doesn’t matter anymore. It doesn’t matter how much I miss her. Her husband takes precedence. I get it, but it still hurts. Scrolling through my phone, I find my brother’s number, the idea of calling Gabriel makes me smile. Gabe would only laugh and tell me it’s what I get for spoiling Stella. He would also offer me the only bed above his motorcycle repair garage while he took the couch.

  I have money saved. It isn’t about not being able to afford somewhere to stay, it’s that it would have been nice to be able to stay with my sister. I’d also be eating into my savings for school.

  Closing my eyes, I sigh as I key in the number for Rourke Vega and save it in my contacts. I’ll call him tomorrow, it’s after seven thirty and seems a little late to bother him. My contacts are few; there’s still the one for my mom even though the number has long been given to someone else. It’s been ten years since she died, and I tell myself every time I see it to delete it, but I can’t. I haven’t changed my carrier even though they are stupidly expensive just so I can save her old voice messages. Two: one telling me she was running late and asking me to start dinner, the other checking in to make sure my finals went well and to say she was proud of me. The last message was left three weeks before she died in a car accident.

  Not for the first time, I blame myself for my sister putting up with her controlling husband. Of course, she thought it was normal when she watched me and my ex. As I do often, I wonder how things would have turned out if my mom hadn’t died; hell, if Dad hadn’t died either. It was pure hell when Dad didn’t come home from his tour overseas, when I was thirteen. Gabe was eighteen and had already signed up for the Army, proud to follow in our dad’s footsteps. Stella was nine, and I have no idea how my mom held it all together.

  Compared to her, I failed miserably. When she died Gabe was on tour overseas, unable to come home for the funeral. It was just me and Stella. The original plan was to go Baylor. I had gotten in with a partial scholarship and was hoping to work my way toward being a doctor. My mom was a physician’s assistant, and I wanted to make her proud by becoming the doctor she always wanted to be.

  When I tried to tell Stella we were going to Baylor, she lost it, refusing to leave her friends and her school. I folded like a wet paper bag, deciding to take the year off to find our new normal. In my mind it was only a year. I would apply to UT at Austin for the next year, or at the very least start at ACC to get the basics out of the way. Except I made the phenomenally huge mistake of getting married only three months later.

  Connor was one of Gabe’s friends, I’d known him for years. He was checking on me and Stella the way he thought Gabe would want him to. I’d never seen Connor as boyfriend material. He was my brother’s annoying older friend. But in the three months following my mother’s death he was the white knight, the strength I needed to lean on so badly. I didn’t love him, though I tried to tell myself I did.

  Only I didn’t love him, I needed him, so it made sense it wa
s a disaster from start to finish. Controlling, manipulative, abusive verbally and mentally and constantly. My sister saw me take it all and smile through the pain. What right did I have to tell her it was wrong now when she watched me go through it on a daily basis?

  I close my eyes tight against those memories. No, I’ve worked hard to move beyond the worst four years of my life. Let it go.

  ***

  It’s just after ten thirty in the morning when I call Rourke Vega. From the rasp of his voice you’d think it was three a.m. “This is Olivia Casey. Patricia gave me your number about a possible position.”

  “Five o’clock, my office. I’ll text you the address.” Then he hangs up.

  Wait? What? I roll my eyes. Asshole. He didn’t even stop to consider if I had plans. I’m just supposed to drop everything to meet with him. The guy isn’t helping his case. My phone chimes with a text. It’s from Vega. I recognize the address: it’s on South Lamar, a bit of a hike from where I am now in Round Rock.

  With traffic during what would normally be called rush hour but is actually parking lot hours from four until seven in the evening, the trip will be at least forty-five minutes; even without traffic it’s a half hour. It might be quicker on I-35, but I never take it. Too many eighteen-wheelers jackknifed and flattened cars—it was how my mother died. I stick to Mo-Pac, Capital of Texas, 183 or the surface streets to get from North to South Austin. It doesn’t matter that Janice already stopped working and will be home with Skyler so I can meet him at five. He doesn’t know it, and to assume I’m working around his schedule screams Rourke Vega is a self-centered asshole.

  Going through my closet, I’m not sure what to wear. I haven’t worn scrubs in almost a year. Skyler didn’t like me in scrubs, hating the way they reminded him I was here to take care of him. I’ve been in leggings and long comfy T-shirts for a while. What does one wear to meet with an asshole billionaire for a job interview?